


Behind Closed Doors

by Audinosaurus



Category: Persona 3, Persona 3 Portable, Persona Series
Genre: F/M, Persona 3 Portable - Freeform, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audinosaurus/pseuds/Audinosaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saori's friendship with someone who isn't Hamuko, Akinari's friend who isn't the MC. Now with 20% less skin and eye pigmentation!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind Closed Doors

**Author's Note:**

> Based on lots and lots of RP groups.

Behind closed doors, Saori Hasegawa had developed something that stood out from everything else she knew. During school, she scraped by. Very few people talked to her. During her club hours, she stayed with Hamuko, the bright-eyed and bushy tailed exchange student she'd been paired with. They got along well.

There was someone who'd grown so close to her that she couldn't imagine being without him. After school, she'd head out to the apartment complexes closest to the park and visit Akinari Kamiki, the sickly drop out who'd become her closest friend.

It was lucky that'd brought them together. Feeling lonely, she'd dragged herself to the park just before he was intending on leaving. Something about them drew them together, perhaps the light pigmentation they shared, or their nature as wandering souls, but they talked as though they'd known each other forever.

Saori felt like she could talk to Akinari. They were close to the same age, and without school, there were no tiers of age of popularity to adhere to that would have pulled them apart. Their experiences, their memories were things they could talk to each other about. They could bond like Saori hadn't experienced before, and despite Akinari constantly being on the verge of life and death, Saori liked to imagine that they'd stay friends like this for years to come.

When Saori's dramatics began, Akinari was by her side. Whether she was visiting his room, which was filled with the remnants of boyhood in the form of toys (Kaori'd been active in watching Jetman as a child, and when she first visited, she was overjoyed to find Akinari had an entire set of figured of them from his childhood) or the side of a hospital bed, he was supportive of her. When she came to the hospital in tears from being slapped, he was quick to sit up and open his arms to her, despite that it'd hurt him some to do.

As she explained it, he thought of advice to offer, but it was something Saori had to face alone. It was, however, an easy way for Akinari to ask her about her feelings in relationships. By the end of the visiting hours, they'd decided, together, to be romantic partners. Saori still had problems with the words 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'.

It was a problem when Saori was expelled. Akinari'd agreed that it was stupid, and his mother had joined them in their complaining, making them tea. She was allowed to stay with them for the time, if only to avoid the unavoidable insults that'd come from the other students. Saori was ever grateful for the opportunity to relax. 

There were more times of trouble before Saori stood up to herself. When she spoke into the microphone of the school's office, Hamuko by her physical side, her thoughts drifted to Akinari. He'd urged her to stand up. 'If you take the abuse, isn't that as though you think it's alright?' He'd said. She took that to heart with her apology, her words. 

It hurt her when she was told she had to move schools. It might have hurt Akinari even more to hear, but she said it. The two agreed to send messages back and forth, to video chat when they could, to do anything and everything to keep in contact. Akinari didn't tell her he wasn't going to take his medicine anymore.

He did, however, stay on video with her the last time he was admitted to the hospital. He laughed when the nurse stuck in his IV, but Saori cringed, terrified of needles. Even her ears weren't pierced. Akinari had a hundred needle scars on his inner elbows. Saori'd seen the ones that were on his body, as well.

They talked well into the night, until Akinari was told he had to turn his laptop off. Saori knew she had school in the morning, as well. Reluctantly, they parted ways, agreeing to keep their laptops and phones close through the night.

Akinari left his laptop beside his hip, where Saori would sit when she'd come to visit him previously. Saori hugged her laptop and used it as a pillow.

During the night, Saori had a nightmare. She'd had nightmares for a while, but this was vivid, it stuck with her. She was standing, holding Akinari's elbows, screaming and crying, but beneath them, awful tentacles-- green and black, slimy and disgusting-- dragged them apart. While she was violent, Akinari didn't put up a fight. He was weakened.

Saori was startled awake by her phone ringing. She grabbed it and pulled it to her ear, tears pooling in her eyes, speaking before the person on the line could even get a word in.

"He's gone, isn't he?"

The silence on the other end confirmed her suspicion.


End file.
